Datacolor SpyderX Capture Pro

Calibrate colours on-screen and on camera

- Matt Golowczynski

The Datacolor SpyderX Capture Pro bundle consolidates four popular products and delivers them in a smart carry case, providing photographers with everything they need to ensure accuracy across exposure, colour and cameras/lens performance.

This package contains the Spyder LensCal, Spyder Cube, Spyder Checkr and SpyderX Elite. Spyder LensCal allows you to check whether your lenses are focusing at the correct point, so that you can make minor adjustments to compensate for any bias. This is particularly important if you frequently use wide-aperture lenses, as these can sometime miss the mark – and with a shallow depth of field this can cause subjects to be rendered out of focus.

The Spyder Cube, meanwhile, is placed in a scene at the start of a shoot to provide you with a reference point for raw adjustments. Its faces give you targets for black, white and 18% neutral grey, which can be used to determine correct contrast, white balance and exposure. There’s also a black ‘trap’ within the black side for absolute black, and a chrome ball at its top to provide a reference for specular highlights.

The third element is Spyder Checkr, a collection of coloured and neutral targets, which can be used to correct white balance, but also provide additional reference points for known colours. It does what’s expected of it, and it’s a useful way to check and balance colour between two different cameras.